Category Archives: Public Sector Pay & Pensions

Our national debt recently exceeded the £1.5 trillion mark – We spend more money in interest payments on the debt annually than we do on defence. Locally, our Conservative Council constantly tell you about their outstanding financial record in much the same way as their national party do at Westminster. ‘Council tax frozen’ is one of their favourite cries, neglecting to mention that Hillingdon levies one of the highest council tax bills in London already.

Their ‘financial prudence’ claims are further tested by the write off of £2.5 million of your money in 2011 in a failed Icelandic Bank, with millions still owing from Landsbanki and Heritable.

This item was passed on to me by a friend and is reproduced with the kind permission of the author, John Planter.

It is one of a number of items I have received recently from people concerned about the state of our country who are coming to the conclusion that there is only one choice going forward for England via the ballot box

The year is 2013 – The coalition have been in power for half of the duration they expect to be in power, the economy is a mess due to a workshy chancellor, the armed forces are a shadow of their former self, the Police privatisation programme is on course, the dismantling of the social security system and NHS is well under way under the guidance of people who seem determined to wreak havoc upon anyone and anything, and the holder of the office of PM is promising yet another referendum about membership of the European suicide pact called the EU.

Most people remember the cast iron guarantee he gave last time, the current indications are a referendum MAY be offered IF the Tories win the next election, so really nothing is being offered at all is it Mr Cameron!

Now let’s take an alternative view.Last night I was listening to the radio, some Labour MP that sounded like her words were coming from a plug in USB drive was almost verging on hysteria when the prospect of leaving the European suicide pact was mentioned.In sharp contrast there was a voice of sanity to answer the scare tactics, that voice belongs to one Nigel Farage of UKIP.

At this point I must for clarity state there may have been representatives from the other two parties in the studio, but as they and their views have been made irrelevant by the actions of their parties in coalition we shall discount them.

Mr Farage made some very succinct points, what no one except Mr Farage seemed remotely concerned with is the fact the European suicide pact now requires this country to open up its borders, housing, employment and benefit system to a prospective 29 MILLIONpeople from Romania and Bulgaria, yet this writer happens to know of a few of those nationalities here already, working and claiming benefits, taking school and housing allocations and it is alleged adding to the crime figures.

This really is the end game – Unless UKIP can become a big enough force to put a brake on the future Milliband Govt ,our country as we know it is history. Thanks to New Labour we have a problem with militant Islamists on our streets, unknown numbers of eastern Europeans in the country, 40,000 dangerous criminals loose and we cannot deport known jihadists due to European suicide pact laws, yet what are Mr Cameron and his coalition tearing themselves apart over?

Homosexual marriage!

I sometime wonder if I have time slipped and am living in one of the worst Monty Python sketches in an endless loop.

Our current crop of 649 (with a few exceptions) self-serving , ignorant and downright dangerous career politicians (I refuse to call them Parliamentarians) have recently agreed to give themselves a whopping pay rise and a decent pension while denying the same to everyone else. Those out of work or long term sick and/or disabled, along with the majority of low paid are facing a 1% pay rise but a real cut in real terms in real life.

Our current dangerous career politicians should be sorting out the mess created by New Labour and bringing the criminals who flourished within it to justice, instead they are squeezing the pips from those who are the backbone of this country,those who cannot possibly afford to pay more.

The majority of these 649 people are the real feckless, scrounging, sponging, workshy, incompetent, cheating freeloaders who have created a Chernobyl in England’s capital city.

The most toxic city in the UK is the City of Westminster, it contains some of the most arrogant, vile, deceitful, dishonest and hateful group of people ever to walk the corridors of power in recent times, they plot various ways to rob, torment and kill the population of this country.

As said previously, there are some notable exceptions, but not that many.

It is fairly certain that there will be a Labour Government next time around. To drag them back onto the path of normality and contain those within who still cling to New Labour ideas and the European suicide pact, it is now a matter of national interest, security, and survival to do your duty and ensure Mr Farage is in a strong position to reign in Labour. UKIP are the only party big enough to do this and none of us can afford to indulge vote splitting smaller parties anymore, this really is our last chance.

Make UKIP strong enough to say no to Labour when it is in the interest of our country and our people because if they cannot then we are finished.Any future you had planned for your children will be in the hands of the European suicide pact and your children will be competing for schools, housing, and employment with anyone from Europe or any country the European suicide pact decide can come here and demand what is your birthright.

You do not have to wear uniform, nor take up arms, or accept ration cards – All you have to do is vote UKIP

Strong words indeed from Mr Planter, and an attitude I am seeing increasingly as the three old political parties destroy our way of life and become ever more distant from us, the people.

It is time to send them a message and build for the future of our children via a vote for UKIP

NB – The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the members or officers of The UK Independence Party (UKIP)

26th December 2011 sees another strike from a Public Sector Union over pay and conditions, this time the members of ASLEF (Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen) going on a one day strike to press home their claims for triple pay and an extra day off for working on Boxing Day on the London Underground System.

ASLEF General Secretary Mick Whelan called for a ballot on strike action to pursue this issue with his members, and got just over 50% backing industrial action on a 42% turnout.

TFL (Transport for London) asked for a judicial ruling to stop the strike, but the courts declared it legal and as such the London Underground is operating today on a very limited service – This has impacted on the first day of the sales, a vital lifeline for our hard-pressed retailers in these straightened times, and has also caused the postponement of the Arsenal vs Wolves football match on what has traditionally been a full day of sport going back over many years.

Part of the Christmas tradition for as long as I can remember has been the working man enjoying a day at his chosen sports venue on Boxing Day, taking advantage of the Bank Holiday – Not this year, as Mick’s minions make demands for conditions that most of us can only dream of. One of my cherished memories of Boxing Day was taking my elderly father to see the last ever Hayes vs Yeading local derby match at Church Road, something that Mr Whelan’s union are probably denying to fathers and sons throughout London today.

On a Different Planet

So let us look at the reality of the situation that Mr Whelan (left) is arguing.

His union represent around 50% of the Tube Driver’s on the London Underground. This means that less than one in six tube drivers actually voted to go on strike today.

More to the point, as was eloquently pointed out to Mr Whelan by Nick Ferrari on his Friday morning LBC Radio show, his members already enjoy wages in excess of £40k per year on a working week of well under 40 hours, and get 8 weeks holiday per year (I consider myself well looked after by the company I work for and earn half this amount with half the holiday entitlement).

Mr Whelan’s argument revolves around his member’s ‘right to quality time with their families’, something that we all enjoy and I would venture builds the family bonds that benefit us all as a community. However, surely those family bonds could be built during the 8 weeks holiday his members already receive? Surely, if they are that worried about family life then they would just book holiday or ‘go sick’ on Boxing Day rather than putting in these outrageous pay demands – Demands that would have to be paid from the taxes of the working man in the private sector who earns far less and has far fewer holidays than the tube drivers?

There is also the argument that tube drivers know that part of the job involves working on certain public holidays every year when they take up their position, so why the big song and dance about it now? To put this in to perspective, let’s look at other public sector workers who have to work over the Christmas holiday period and their standard conditions –

Police Constable – £23,259 per year rising to £36,519 per year after 10 years service

Police Sergeant – £36,519 rising to £41,040 per year based on length of service and performance

Police Inspector – £48,840 per year (Capital only, based on London Weighting payment)

Now think to yourself what these public sector workers have to do for a living and how their decisions affect lives, and what the tube drivers do for a living?

Whilst it is a vital job in the public interest, a bus driver has to be far more alert and aware of his surroundings on an open road than a tube driver but still has the same duty of care to his passengers. The bus driver also has to do more than push a lever backwards and forwards to increase and decrease speed and tap a brake to stop. He also has no safety cut outs should he run a red light, and no ‘dead man’s handle’ if he passes out at the controls. Now look at the bus driver’s pay and conditions and those of the tube drivers.

Time to get in to the real world

Mr Whelan posted on the ASLEF website on 20th December that the 5.9% fare increases coming in to effect on our railways next year are unacceptable, under the headline ‘Rail for the Rich’. I would ask him if, in this context, pushing for yet more money for already very well paid train drivers is not contributing to the problem?

Does he also not see that actions such as these diminish the chances of further investment in the railway network, damaging the long term prospects of his members when a co-ordinated transport plan including rail could be put forward as an answer to the congestion problems we are seeing at the moment?

Whilst I don’t agree with the HS2 project, there are other options involving rail that could be put in to action on a limited budget that would bring him many more members on a sensible pay rate boosting both his union coffers and the economy.

Public sector unions and their disconnection from reality

This latest tube strike is just another in a long line, although the last few have been triggered by Mr Whelan’s counterpart at the other rail union, The RMT, Bob Crow (Left)

Mr Whelan is a member of the Labour Party (As confirmed on the ASLEF website), whilst Mr Crow has links to several ‘far left’ organisations.

In one way, you could say that they are doing a great job for their members as official figures show that public sector workers now earn on average 7.5 per cent more than their equivalents in the private sector, and their pension provision is stratospheric compared to those in the open market. However, as I pointed out to our local Labour MP John McDonnell on his website (A comment to one of his posts supporting public sector strikes that he dared not publish), the actions of Union leaders such as Mr Crow may give a short term boost to the pay packets of his members but the knock on effect of increased transport costs and increased taxation to pay for them will lead to more private sector workers losing their jobs, affecting the government’s ability to pay these wages.

Mr McDonnell makes great copy with his tirades against the greed of the corporate bankers and the efforts of the Government to set public sector against private sector workers. What he fails to grasp is that by supporting the likes of Mr Crow in their industrial actions (A man, incidentally, who earns over £100k per year from union donations and lives in a council house that most of his members would not be entitled to) he is fuelling this division in our society and playing in to the hands of the people he claims to oppose. Whilst the salaries and bonuses of the big bankers are obscene and cannot be justified, their companies employ a large part of our private sector economy that funds via taxation the public sector workers who are making these claims for pay increases and protected pensions.

I did not hear the union bosses or Mr McDonnell (right) screaming blue murder when those of us in the private sector had our pension plans destroyed by yet another of then Labour Chancellor Gordon Brown’s tax grabs .

I could be uncharitable and suggest that this may have been down to the Union Bosses giving themselves huge pay rises and increasing their Labour Party donations during the 13 years of the ‘New Labour’ government, but maybe I am being cynical.

What I do know is that they need to look at the situation that our country finds itself in seriously and start accepting that the days of generous pay increases and bloated pensions are over if they truly believe that we need to maintain services without cuts.

Labour increased the public sector workforce by half a million people in the good times without any noticeable improvement in the services provided whilst the private sector workforce saw their wages and job security impacted by the effects of mass immigration in the market place.

Union placemen found themselves well paid jobs within government departments (A Daily Telegraph investigation by Robert Watts earlier this month found 250 such union officials at Whitehall costing the taxpayer at least £5 million per year) whilst their leaders screamed about excesses in the private sector.

A healthy society needs good public sector services with well trained staff dedicated to looking after the general public. They should be highly valued and well remunerated for their efforts, but should never forget that they are there to serve and are not immune to the ups and downs that affect those who pay their wages in the form of taxes.

The attitude of the likes of Bob Crow and Mick Whelan in constantly pushing for industrial action over petty differences does our society no good and harms the community spirit needed to get through the hard times we find ourselves in.

One of my favourite songs of the last 5 years is ‘Arrogance, Ignorance and Greed’ by the English folk group Show of Hands – It was written about the banking crisis and those at the top of the chain who caused so much damage to our economy and society. I pray that in 2012 another group does not feel the need to write a similar tune about the excesses of the TUC affiliated trade unions and their funded puppets within the Labour Party.

What do you think? Are the Trade Unions going too far and pitching public and private sector against each other? Do you think the tube drivers are being unreasonable, or their strike action is the right thing to do? Do you feel that the public sector strikes are justified or that they need to take a long hard look at themselves and count their blessings? Let us know your opinions!